Victoria & Albert: A (real) Love Story

 Yesterday I decided to watch The Young Victoria and I had totally forgotten how wonderful that movie was! Emily Blunt was so beautiful and she looked like she was pulled out of the pages of royal history. Rupert Friend was very charming and dashing as his role of Prince Albert. His soft spoken nature was such a healing and soothing balm compared to the harshness and the loudness of the rest of the male cast.

Albert & Victoria have always been my favorite royal couples (followed by Queen Elizabeth & Prince Philip, and Crown Prince Frederik & Crown Princess Mary of Denmark). Their rather unique love story is definitely novel and script worthy.

 In 2001 the BBC made a mini-series about the couple simple entitled Victoria & Albert and as much as I enjoy The Young Victoria, this mini-series is incredibly beautiful and well done. Their version of Albert is very different from Rupert Friend's interpretation. Albert in this is somewhat feisty and short tempered. He is by no means in love with Victoria at all and marries her out of duty. His sense of morality is incredible though. He utterly refuses to read Lord Byron because of the poet's extravagant personal life.

After a certain incident where he sees a married member of parliament with a long time mistress in the palace, he urges Victoria to have her removed. When she refuses and asks why he tells her that his mother's life was all but destroyed because of his father's philandering behavior.

Albert completely turned the monarchy around with his moral, Christian, and upright decisions about marriage, family (he was the father of nine children), social class, work, education and much more.With time and patience his no nonsense, but congenial public behavior eventually endeared himself to the British people and even to Parliament.

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Unlike The Young Victoria where Albert is seen as a romantic hero, when I watched the mini-series, I didn't see anything particularly romantic about Prince Albert. He didn't sweep Victoria off her feet or shower her with flowers and jewels. Instead her counseled her, protected her, and eventually loved her more than anyone else in the world.

Webster's definition of romance: To forge and tell fictitious stories; to deal in extravagant stories.

Basically romance in it's entirety is...a lie; and yet for years and years, people have succumbed to the lie that romance is an important aspect of love. Society today has an unrealistic view of romance and what love should be.

Now Prince Albert was not what one would have called romantic; at least by today's standards he wouldn't be. He was shy, quiet, and kept to himself. Being a German, he was disliked by many members of the British Parliament.

  His marriage to Victoria was practically arranged, but it was she who made the final decision in who her consort was to be. He was not quickly accepted by Parliament and it seems they did everything in their power to demean him in anyway possible.

  In his own words he says of his marriage to Queen of England.

"I am very happy and contented; but the difficulty in filling my place with the proper dignity is that I am only the husband, not the master in the house." 

He was also intensely moral and would not condone any immoral behavior in the palace.

Victoria & Albert's marriage was not easy at first. With the constant demands on Victoria as Queen and Albert leaving everything he knew and loved in Germany to come to England and be treated like a complete outsider can make for a stressful beginning. Victoria was absolutely convinced that she had made the right decision though.

After her wedding night she wrote: 

I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!!! MY DEAREST DEAREST DEAR Albert ... his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of heavenly love & happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, & we kissed each other again & again! His beauty, his sweetness & gentleness – really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband! ... to be called by names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before – was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!

I think she's made her point.